Friday Night’s Alright For Writing (#15) Honey, please

Yes, another post inspired by something I saw on a run…it’s no wonder there haven’t been many of these lately because I think it’s been about 4 weeks since I last ran.  Between regular work, working overtime, my Game Of Thrones addiction (yes, I finally watched episode 9 and I still haven’t recovered,) my personal life and just every day crap, who has time for exercise? Well, the run reminded me why I need to find time…

So, I saw this bee.

Bees and Flowers (Photo credit: blentley)

It was on the ground, walking with its wings spread amongst a plethora of lavender Jacaranda blossoms.  It looked like I felt – sluggish.  It didn’t have many friends around, for which I was glad because I’m not that big a fan of bees.  I appreciate them for all they do (pollination…yeah, it’s a biggie), but the buzzing they do instills a fear in me like no other. Maybe I was stung to death in a former life.  I’ve never been stung in this life (knock wood), but I really don’t want to be.  There was an incident with yellow jackets at Griffith Park when I was about 5 (picnic, swarm, insect on thumb, never to return for 20 years…need I say more?), so maybe that’s it, but I just don’t like them. I do appreciate them though, especially now since the amount of them has decreased so much in past years.

When I saw this bee, other than reminding me how slow going it was for me on this run, I was also reminded of a few posts I saw on Facebook this week about Monsanto and a few other giant corporations and the honey bee collapse.  This little bee looked like it had been slowly poisoned. Lethargic…it couldn’t quite fly. And given all of the chemicals used today, it’s not surprising.  We’ve managed to eliminate many of their natural habitats, and alter those left with dangerous pesticides.  They ingest these, take them back to their hives and the poison spreads.  There were only one or two bees that I saw while running… There used to be so many at this time of year, I would rather stay inside. Now, I’m looking for them in every flower I see just to make sure it’s actually June.

These are the things I think about when I’m out and about…and then I thought about what I ate this week…it was a funky last week and a half at work where lunch was provided often and not the healthiest of options either.  I gained 3 lbs. I felt bloated. I probably ingested some of the same chemicals as that bee. I didn’t feel good this week, and it was clear the bee didn’t either.

Moral of my short post for the evening…eliminate the crap from my diet whenever I can, continue to support ecological agriculture in any way I can, drink more water all the time, eat more organic honey, and run.  Happy Weekend.